


Artificial Hearts

by rywaen



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Community: avengerkink, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-19
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-05 16:03:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rywaen/pseuds/rywaen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amid the machines and blueprints, the strong smell of grease and sweat and chemicals clouding the recycled air, they found their peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artificial Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aisu10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/gifts).



> For anon on Avengerkink:  
> I just want Bruce and Tony and any sort of heart references you can think of. No sex please but I don't mind light kissing. I don't care about the scenario - basically just do whatever comes to mind. Surprise me!
> 
> +1000 if mentioning Bruce's heart rate counter beeping  
> +10000 if mentioning Tony's heart in relation to his arc reactor

Tony has never been one to sit comfortably in silence. Be it blaring music, the whirring of machines, or his own voice he always needed to have something fill the dead air with life and noise. It had been that way for as far back as he could remember; filling the quiet nights alone with songs to keep his mind from the dark dank depression. Often bringing himself a small sense of comfort at the silent dinner table with his father, replacing words with silverware clicking on the smooth surface and a foot tapping on the floor anxiously. And eventually an AI who would talk to him no matter what time of day it was. 

He replaced silence with any noise he could conjure up or surround himself with. If nothing else, he learned that tapping fingers or toes did the trick well enough. No matter what, he always needed to drown the silence. 

The last time he had been consumed by silence was in the caves in Afghanistan. Those rare moments when there was a lull in his forced labor that brought about the Iron Man suit, when Yinsen was resting his weary bones on his meager cot, when their captors weren’t screaming at them in languages that sometimes even Yinsen didn’t understand. They were deafening, those moments of silence, and it often felt as if the crushing silence made his heart beat that much slower. 

Bruce, on the other hand, reveled in silence. Silence meant peaceful, calm moments, the ever-present anger still there, but it was tucked away into a compartment in his mind as he breathed deep, eyes fluttering shut, hands light as feathers on his crossed legs. Quiet moments meant he could think, listen, be constantly on alert, ready to uproot and run cross country in a moment’s notice if the army came in, busting down his door.

He was used to the noise of cities and towns, of course, but he always did his best to try to locate one calm zone, even if the sounds were only muffled, it was still close enough to what he needed. Those times when he actually felt like he could breathe again, the quiet expanding the area surrounding him, no noise to bounce off the walls and reverberate back to him to tell him exactly how big his cage was this time. Silence meant no matter how small the area, it could be as big as he desired without noise to clog up the stillness.

Noise now brought with it anxiety and a swell of anger deep in the pit of his stomach. It was green and expansive, leaving no room to breathe, no space to think. It brought about chaos and death, the noise. The last time the sounds fully encompassed him, he broke an entire city which was not something he wanted to do again any time soon. Those maddening moments of noise set him on edge, making his heart beat that much faster.

But amazingly, the two of them managed to find a comfortable place in between the silence and the clamour. It existed in a space that was sacred to them, unconventional as it may seem to everyone else. Amid the machines and blueprints, the strong smell of grease and sweat and chemicals clouding the recycled air, they found their peace. 

Bruce stood behind Tony, his face pressed into the curve of his neck, arms wrapped around his strong chest. His fingers curled around the glowing sphere in Tony’s chest, the artificial heart that kept him alive, clutching it protectively as he breathed in his scent. 

He could feel his own heartbeat, chest flush with Tony’s back as it slowly elevated, the heart monitor strapped to his wrist beeping audibly to let him know of the change. It was still slow enough to keep him from pulling away, but just high enough to let them both know what he was feeling. 

He could feel Tony’s head turn, the muscles in his neck shifting under his cheek as he turned to lean his cheek against the top of Bruce’s head. They stood in the almost-silence, their heartbeats breaking the quiet as Tony’s grease-stained hands found Bruce’s and wrapped their fingers together gently, careful to let him hold the arc-reactor still. 

“Are you-”

“Don’t. Just don’t, Tony.” 

They stayed still, connected by hands and heartbeats until Tony pulled Bruce’s fingers away with his own, turning in Bruce’s arms to face him, two sets of deep brown eyes meeting, one with flecks of dangerous green floating around the edges. 

“I wasn’t gonna say it, you know.” Tony paused, pulling Bruce’s hands around to settle on the small of his back, trailing his fingers up Bruce’s arms and neck to rest his thumbs on either side of his face, keeping their eyes locked. “I know how much you hate it.”

“Yes you were, you were going to ask if I’m okay.”

“You’d think that, but then you’d be wrong.” Tony smirked, watching as Bruce’s brow furrowed and he leaned in to rest their foreheads together, listening as the heart meter beeped rhythmically at his back, the arc-reactor glowing between them.

“Then what were you going to say?” 

“I was going to ask if you were happy. Like this. With me. In the quiet. Because, you know, I don’t really like the quiet, but your heart meter kinda makes up for that and it puts something in between the silence and the noise and I know you only let it beep like that if you’re either happy or upset. And I wanted to make sure you’re happy. Here. With me. Because I’m a needy bastard, as you know, and I want to make you happy.”

Bruce stayed silent, letting Tony’s babble sink in, because Tony was the kind of guy who said a lot while simultaneously saying nothing at all. But it was there, out in the open now. He wanted Bruce to be happy. 

Tony watched as Bruce’s eyes glued to the arc-reactor, watching it glow through his thin tank-top, the circle of light giving off a faint hum as it kept the heart just beyond its metal beating. It in itself was Tony’s heart, the natural one behind his ribs having given up that job description years ago when the shrapnel threatened his life. He clutched Tony’s shirt in his hands, his heartbeat audible around his wrist, mixing perfectly with the hum of the arc-reactor. They were aligned like this. 

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

Bruce looked up again and met Tony’s eyes, smiling softly as he nodded, placing their foreheads together again, eyes slipping shut as he pressed a soft kiss against Tony’s lips, pulling back after a moment and resting in Tony’s arms.

“Yeah, I’m happy.”


End file.
